


Guilty of Her Own Disasters and Moving On

by fresne



Category: King Lear - Shakespeare
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Female Protagonist, Goneril POV, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Miscarriage, Villains are the Heroes of their Own Narrative, canon violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-22 10:55:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4832774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was no Queen in the Queen's bower. She'd long ago died.</p>
<p>There was no King on the throne. He'd given it up to be Mothered by his daughters. </p>
<p>That left only a Kingdom with holes in the middle. Even the Fool could see war was coming. </p>
<p>Goneril was no fool. She could regret the coming war. But with the memory of her Mother's chides in her ear, she'd ever press on. After all the stars have no feet to guide us to the deeds we do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guilty of Her Own Disasters and Moving On

**Author's Note:**

> After writing the last three Shakespeare pieces, I was trying to decide what to write. It occurred to me it would be interesting to take on the challenge of writing Goneril (and by extension Regan), and giving them their own narrative reasons for behaving as they do.
> 
> I also did a little math, and since Lear says he's four score and upward, that means he's 80, which made placing the sister's ages interesting. So, Goneril here is in her early forties, Regan in her early thirties, and Cordelia is in her early twenties. I hadn't really expected their dead Mother to take up so much space, as she became somewhat Eleanor of Aquitainish in my imagination, but with her life cut short, but there it is.
> 
> Non-con is referenced for a minor character. Sex scenes with Goneril/Edmund, and shorter scene with Goneril/Albany. References to eyes being plucked out.
> 
> Hopefully obviously, there are bits of dialog from Lear, or paraphrased from Lear. Those bits belong to Shakespeare.

Goneril wanted to snap at her younger sister, Regan, to stop using her little finger to fish for an insect gone to a drunken death in her wine. She wanted to snap at her youngest sister, Cordelia, to stop fluttering about the richly panelled room that had been their Mother, the Queen's, bower. Goneril wanted to put a hand on her belly over the child presently curled there and will it to continue abusing her with kicking.

She ached with what she was not doing. 

"Why is it so cold in here?" asked Regan, as she rubbed her bare arms. "When this was my bower, I made sure this room was kept warm enough. Cordelia, Father may not think you need to be burdened with a chatelaine's keys, but the least you could do is order a brazier to add to the heat of the fire."

"Regan, there's a lovely fire down in the Great Hall, where Father, is." Cordelia seemed almost ready to make a break for the door. "That's where we should be if you both weren't set on this unnatural discussion."

"There's nothing unnatural about it," said Goneril. "Age and the weakness it brings is perfectly natural." She snapped her teeth together too late to keep herself from saying, "As natural as being cold when dressed for the summer in the winter." 

"How typical of you, Goneril. When I managed this household after Mother died, all you could talk about were my suitors out of jealousy that you only had but one. Now that we have to discuss what's to be done about Father, all you can say is I'm dressed like a trollop." Regan stabbed a finger in Goneril's direction.

Goneril managed, just, to bite back her thoughts. 

Regan tossed her red braids and almost upset the gold chains woven there. She must have seen the words Goneril was holding back. Goneril must do better. She could hear her Mother's voice urging her to do better. Goneril sighed. "I wish Mother were alive."

Regan laughed. "Oh, I'm sure you think that if Mother were here, she would side with you. You were her favourite. But we both know she'd have been confined back to that fenbound estate, if she hadn't caught her death of cold there and doubly died."

Goneril clenched her hands behind her back. "You're too young remember when Father confined Mother to the island of Ely. At the time it, seemed…"

"Yes, I know, a glorious adventure to run about the marsh and pass messages for Mother. I was there and it was cold." Regan flicked wine from her cup.

"You were a baby at your nurse's breast," said Goneril. She let the air out in a sigh. "But it was cold and damp. We're both fortunate that Father couldn't afford dissolve the marriage without losing her dowry, and she convinced him to try to hammer sons from her anvil, or the rooms of that estate would have been where we grew to be women."

"That's not true," said Cordelia. "Father loved Mother. He love us. That's why he summoned both of you. He wants to see you, and how are you repaying that love, by sending the servants away so you can talk against him behind his back."

"It's best there not be servants for this discussion." A log cracked and fell. Goneril yanked the poker from its hanger and tended the fire herself. 

Cordelia said, "Goneril, look at me." 

Goneril added a log to the fire. 

Cordelia said, "There is nothing wrong with our Father, the King. We should be downstairs with him. We should enjoy a day in which all three of us are gathered together. There is nothing else to discuss. Too soon, I'll be wed and must live far away."

"Yes, little Cordelia, who must have a king." Regan fished and fished in her cup. Regan said, "Our Father, dear Sister, called me by Mother's name when I arrived, and this is not the first time he's done so."

"Your names are very similar," said Cordelia, "and you have her looks."

"How would you know if I have her looks? You've been told that she had red hair and green eyes, like I have. That is not the same as being a copy of her. Nor does sharing a letter or two mean our names are the same," said Regan in that high tone that meant she'd soon be throwing things. 

Goneril almost flung the poker, but Mother had long ago drummed into her the mastery of her temper. Goneril said, "Cordelia, this last month, Father, summoned Jerome, the Earl of Warwick to his court. He flew into a rage when Jerome would not come, and declared him banished." Goneril jabbed at the logs in the fire and made more sparks than she did order.

"Have a care, Goneril," said Cordelia, as a spark came near Goneril's long woolen skirts.

Goneril ground the ember with the toe of her leather slipper. "That Earl Jerome died some ten years past. Father commanded that they dig up his corpse for his insolence. His son, the present Earl is now exiled for refusing." She kept twisting her foot even though the ember was nothing but soot upon the hearth stones. Until she was glaring at the ashes.

Cordelia wrapped her hand around Goneril's arm. "Goneril, it's out."

"Yes," hissed Goneril. "It is out. As the Jews are now out after Father decided he didn't want to pay a debt he paid forty years passed and exiled them for the Sanhedrin's crime of killing Christ."

"They could have remained if they'd sworn themselves Christian," said Cordelia. "It was for the good of Father's soul. Goneril, the ember's out. Stop."

Goneril ground her foot three more times for good measure, because she would not be told what to do. Not by Cordelia with her wide guileless blue eyes. Not by Regan with her jealous green ones. Where did that leave Goneril with her brown eyes? "Who will we go to if we need ready money to raise troops for war?"

"But there is no war. We're at peace." The perfect princess pleaded with her. Goneril could have stood it if Cordelia was a conniving snake. Goneril could respect a conniving snake over a rabbit.

Regan flung aside her cup. It spilled on the table, but she made no move to mop it up. 

Cordelia looked around the room for a cloth. There were only velvet robes and thick fur. She dabbed at the spill with her own velvet sleeve, quite ruining the fabric.

Goneril made herself not tell Cordelia to stop. "Fine, let us speak of the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France. Father invited them both to be betrothed to you."

Cordelia gave up her dabbing. "Yes." She looked at the painted panel of the lady and the unicorn in front of her. "It will be hard to be so far from home. I had hoped to choose my husband for love. Father'd promised me, but it would seem he's forgotten."

"He forgot!" Goneril snapped her fingers. "You prove our point. Father would never forget a promise to you." 

"Or course, he promised you," said Regan with a twist of her lips. "He was not so kind when I presented my preferences. He had Gloucester pluck out my lover's eyes for gazing where they shouldn't. Though," she stabbed at the table with her fingers, "of course, as Gloucester is Cornwall's, and that was the King's command, we are now well in each other's friendship."

Goneril could have hated Cordelia for saying, "Oh, but Regan, you skirted disgrace before you were married to Cornwall. Everyone said so." Cordelia's eyes were as a wide as an astonished sky. 

She grew dawn cheeked when Regan said, "Since I've come here, I've heard you've chanced the same stealthy fate with Edgar, Gloucester's son, or did you think planning to wed is the same as being wed." Her smile was brittle. "I've just been blessed by fate to not catch a child easily. You might not be so born under such a lucky star."

Were the discussion not on such dark old wounds, Goneril could have laughed. She could imagine Edmund's reaction if he heard them speaking of fate. 

Regan shoved back her chair to pace to the shuttered window. Outside the wind whistled on its cold way. Goneril could at least appreciate that the weather was doing its best to agree with their mood.

"Let's not lose the thread here." Goneril ground out words as if she were milling wheat. "Cordelia, Father promised you to both the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France." Goneril held up both hands. "He invited them both to be betrothed to you. As if you cannot have but one husband."

"It is not enough that they are enemies to each other and if one were on fire the other would not piss on the hissing corpse," said Regan.

"Regan!" said Cordelia.

"Yes, it is well that you can prove you can remember her name." Goneril shoved the poker roughly back on its stand. "One question, is my name so like our Mother's that when Father calls me by that name it is only natural? Do I look like Mother with my black hair and brown eyes? How can Goneril and Regan be both so like the name Ragnall?"

Cordelia's hand made its way over her heart. Her rich sleeve, damp with mulled wine, brushed against the twisted gold chains of her belt where no chatelaine's keys hung. "There's nothing wrong with Father."

"A nothing that nearly had us at war with the Scots this last summer, when he declared your betrothal to the Scottish King one week and insisted that it had never happened the next," said Goneril. "We all know while he lives, he'd never let you wed. He dearly loves the way you dote on him." She looked back at the fire. "If Edmund, that bastard son of Gloucester that you've sneered at, had not soothed the Scots raven's feathers, we'd had that war and,"

"By Gloucester's son, you mean Edgar, not Edmund." Cordelia cut her off. "I know that you and Regan favour him, but Edmund's a viper, but for some reason no one can see the truth. Edgar was the one who made that peace."

Goneril longed for a viper just then. A vicious adder who would strike and strike. As if an heir need learn the art of flattery. She curled her hand over the belly where the babe still kicked within her. She willed it to have the will to live.

"Edmund," Goneril said, "says that every time our Father mentions his weary bones or tired eyes, he's let drop stories of past kings who retired to country estates to while away their winter years in comfort to pave our way for what must be done."

Regan asked, "Do you think Father'll remember long enough to do it? I have no such faith. And what of it." As she began the old complaint. "Do you mean to be Queen in his place, and leave nothing for Cordelia and myself?" Goneril wondered Regan had bothered to include Cordelia.

Goneril paced the short circle of the room. "Regan, you have a rich southern duchy. Mother's own dowry. While we have our pick of kings for Cordelia." She did not say that Cordelia was unfit and unsuited and untrained for a crown. She had not so forgotten their Mother's lessons. She did say, "So yes, I mean to be Queen. Our Kingdom was generations in the making. What was once whole under the Romans was fragmented by those who came after. A shattered thing slowly knitted together by war and marriage. Until finally Grandfather conquered the South. Until Father captured Tintagel with a hundred knights and with it, Mother's hand. Between them, they united North and South. So, yes, I mean that we not divide what it took generations to build." 

"But, Father is the king. He cannot stop being the king," Cordelia looked at Regan. She looked at Goneril. She twittered, "This is unnatural. It's treason."

"Not if it's his decision to step aside," said Goneril. She tapped the table. "Had I been a son, then already I'd have been crowned the young king."

"Oh, this again. We none of us were sons." Regan bared her teeth. "And both of us know which daughter he'll pick if it's his decision." A truth Goneril could not argue with. Regan turned on Cordelia. "Come Cordelia, you must convince him. You're his favourite. You always have been. Be the young Queen."

"He favours me, it's true. But he loves all of us. Just as you divide your love between Father and your husbands." Cordelia's hands put on a show of being moths about a flame.

Regan said, "Speaks the youngest who was given lessons in the lute if she hummed and granted a white pony with silver reins when she so much as sighed. When I sighed, I was told to stop flirting and cover up my chest."

Goneril dearly wanted to say something to that, but she must stay true to her task. "It's not fit that Cordelia be Queen. Cordelia, you have no training."

"I do not want to be Queen," said Cordelia. 

"And you are fit, because you were Mother's favourite, Goneril." Regan rapped her knuckles on the table. "Given lessons and all Mother's herb craft. What did I get? Nothing but a strip of land that sticks into the sea."

"Let's not fight," said Cordelia. Her breath was rapid and her face pale. "There is no reason."

Goneril made herself smile. Queens must smile. She smoothed her face of all the angry agitation it had worn since she arrived and all these months as each new word of Father's decline reached her. She took Cordelia's hands in her own. "Cordelia, our Father is tired. You still live in his household. Doesn't he complain every day about that old crossbow injury he took to his shoulder?"

"Yes, he rubs it often," admitted Cordelia. "And his joints trouble him fiercely."

"And doesn’t he have trouble sleeping for all the cares of the kingdom, which makes him sometimes sharp in his manners," said Goneril with smooth voiced concern.

Cordelia chewed at her lower lip and finally admitted, "Yes. But three weeks ago, he flung a boar spear at Lord James of Tamberheath for speaking in too high a voice. In truth his voice is very high. It's very irritating."

"Yes, of course, his voice is very irritating," said Goneril. She rubbed her thumb along the back of Cordelia's hand. "Our Father is weary. He needs to be at his rest."

"What he needs to is be put to pasture." Regan crossed her arms at a shushing gesture from Goneril. "Do not shush me. We are equally Duchesses. Neither of the two of us are higher in Father's eyes."

"Which is why Cordelia should be the one to tend to Father when I am Queen." As if Father would allow anyone else other than his favourite. "Cordelia, with time on your side, you could convince him of your choice in marriage." It galled her to say that. It galled her to think of Cordelia married to someone she respected and loved. It galled her more to think of Cordelia as Queen.

She'd have continued, but they were interrupted by a knock upon the door. A servant peered in. "Your Graces, the King summons you."

"There," said Cordelia, pulling her hands away from Goneril. "He's fine and he's missing our company."

She left the room without waiting for Regan's muttered, "He's missing your company you mean. I don't even know why he summoned us."

The answer came from their Father himself. He planned to divide the Kingdom between the three of them after all. He planned to give the largest section to the one who loved him the most. His white teeth glistened between wet lips in anticipation of their adoration. Father always did love being loved. 

He looked at Cordelia and smiled oh so benignly.

"I told you," whispered Regan fierce as a goshawk. "He'll give it all to Cordelia and leave us some poor slivers. How does it feel to come in last after being born first?"

Goneril pushed her aside. "I'll tell you when it happens." Her Father called on her. He called on her as his eldest born. Not best beloved. Not dear. Eldest. Near to being old herself, though were she a man she'd yet be accounted in her prime. She looked in her Father's eyes and measured her love for him as limitless. If she had blushes left, she'd have given them. But already his eyes were wandering to Cordelia. 

He granted Goneril some small estates and went on to Regan, who was called forth as dearest on account of her being wife to Cornwall. Regan laid on the flattery as if Father were a piece of toast. She did no better. 

Then came Cordelia, the sweet honest slip, she told their Father that her love was limited and that half would go to her husband, as if she had no idea that she was still unwed because Father could not bear to part with her.

Their Father, always quick in his temper, now ever faster to flame, cast Cordelia out of his love like a rag. Goneril did not change her expression. She did not meet Regan's green eyed gaze. She kept her hands loose at her sides. She'd learned this lesson long ago at their Mother's knee in a marsh bound estate. She'd learned this lesson while walking the muddy path of the Devil's Dyke.

Edmund, she hadn't realized he stood so close, whispered in her ear, "If he could turn on the daughter he favoured above all others…" 

As always at his voice, her breath caught in her chest as fabric catches on a splinter. "My Lord, you surprise me, when I last saw you, you were standing by your Father, the Earl of Gloucester."

She cursed herself for the slip as he said, "I am gratified that you follow where I am standing, my Lady." She did not dignify him with a reply, which she supposed was reply enough.

The Duke of Kent, the idiot, went to Cordelia's defence and almost lost his life. Their Father, already forgetting he was giving away his kingdom, exiled a man who'd served him loyally through several wars from the kingdom that was no longer his.

All for a woman, who the King of France eagerly snatched up as his Queen. 

"Clever man," whispered Edmund.

"Foolish Burgundy. Clever France. That is why one is a king and the other a duke," replied Goneril. She granted Edmund a thin smile. "Doweryless, she'd have done you no good."

"No," smiled Edmund, as brightly handsome as ever. She could not have said how his blues eyes were clover and Cordelia's so lacking in guile, but there it was. He said, "I've no army that could gain a kingdom if I had her as my bride to put the blush of justice to that invasion."

Albany, her husband, exclaimed, "How France must love Cordelia to take her in even without a dowry." He turned to Goneril. "Ceasar did that with his first wife. Goneril, did you know that?"

She forced a smile. "No, I did not, but now you've told me, I do, and I thank you for that information. I've also heard Portia ate live coals when she heard that Brutus was dead. You told me that I think." Her husband smiled to have his words sung back to him. 

Edmund standing beside her brushed his knuckles across her wrist and she shivered. 

Albany asked, "Are you cold? We must keep the babe who nests inside you well swaddled. This one will live, I know it." 

"I am a little cold," said Goneril.

"I'd have said overly warm myself," whispered Edmund, as Albany bustled away to summon a servant for a cloak.

Goneril made herself calm. She made herself be cool. She said, "If Cordelia had had a cunning bone in her body, I'd have thought her happy to be quit of a cold northern kingdom and gain a sunny southern one." She waited on baited breath for his answer quickly caught.

"Her court of love will be full of troubadours," said Edmund. He smiled as pleasantly as he always did. "We know what knight will lay prostrate in your court of love, my Lady."

"None, but some hundred knights to maintain," she sweetly replied. 

Albany returned with the cloak, which he set about Goneril's shoulders. "A hundred knights is a fit escort for a king. Charlemagne always travelled with a hundred knights. I cannot recall if Arthur had so many."

"I'm sure you'll recount them, my Lord," said Goneril to her husband.

She stepped forward with a smile as Father divided the kingdom equally between herself and Regan. With one gesture cutting in half what it had taken generations of wars and weddings to join together. A crazy wild line that cut cities in half and rent counties. She supposed houses as well. Even Father's Fool could see that this cut would break this house.

As the court swirled about congratulating Albany and her brother-in-law, Cornwall, on their new fortunes, Edmund murmured, "A hundred knights could take a kingdom. Your Father took a kingdom with a hundred knights and a wedding night. Would that I had a hundred knights and a wedding night. And there is the King of France with far more than a hundred knights in his army."

"You do not need to teach me strategy," but she smiled at him. "It is good to know we are of a mind." 

The King of France held pale faced Cordelia's hand as they left for as hasty a wedding as there ever was. Edgar stood by with his heart in his eyes. Goneril smiled sweetly and said to Edmund, "Poor bastard, isn't he."

"Legitimate son and high in his father's favour," he replied. "But I'd rather be high in another's favour." He glanced down at the swell of her belly. "And there's the license for it."

She looked at the stone work. "You forget yourself, sir."

"Mistress, please," his clever tongue lingered over the word, "relieve your knight and say that there lies the grant for higher favours."

She held a no in her mouth for a long moment, but let slip a yes while watching her Father spin about the court. 

But she could hear Mother's chide of, "Duty before pleasure." Always she could hear the chides. She sometimes wished Mother would plague Regan the same way, but then perhaps she did. Goneril was not privy to her sister's thoughts.

Albany went to sit with her Father and listen to him and the Earl of Gloucester put a layer of silk on the sow's ear of the past. Edmund went to sit with his Father.

Regan sat holding court at the other end of the Great Hall with her husband Cornwall proud of his charming wife.

It was a relief when Goneril's steward, Oswald, arrived. "My Lady, there is an enormous amount of work to be done." He was smiling and bouncing on his toes.

She laughed at him. "There is and we both know how you hate work." 

"No more than you, my Lady," said Oswald with an answering laugh. They sat for some hours reviewing what needed to be done first. Though she supposed Albany would chide her later for not sitting at Father's feet as if he were Christ and his every word should be clung to. 

When they'd written all the letters that could be written, Goneril sent Oswald to Scarborough. "I am certain the Lord there has been taking advantage of Father's state to skim off the crown's portion of the fees from the fair. Check his books and for God's sake, be sure the harbour is secure."

Oswald would have gone that very night, if she hadn't said, "It can wait till the morning."

"First light, my Lady," said Oswald. She could have kissed him for not arguing with her, but that reminded her that she had someone else wanting kisses.

Goneril went to the buttery to do more counting. She went to count kisses.

Edmund was there waiting. 

Goneril welcomed Edmund's kiss in the warmth of the room. Bastard as he was, he must scramble for favour, just as she must. He lifted her onto the table and she gasped into his embrace as he laid his lips upon the slight curve of her belly, and said, "Sweet license," and she twisted as he brought his lips to her bared breasts, "would that you'd me grant me this license when you were not so burdened."

She let fall open her legs. An invitation he took up by settling between them. She licked her lips. "So, you could put your own planting there in my husband's place."

She gasped as he took her invitation and roughly filled her. "So, I can." He gave her no moment to adjust or catch her breath, but quickly thrust it from her. "Plant a child." He spread her legs wider yet. He set a rapid canter that pleased her well. He shifted her so he might more deeply go to her half bitten cries. "That." His rough breaths in her face were sweetened with mint. "Will live." He galloped in her until she must muffle her pleasure in a pillow, and finally gave way to his own cries, which he in no way quieted. Such a bastard to skirt the risk of being heard. Such a bastard to speak so to her.

In her pleasure, her Mother's warnings fell away, and she could not care. As they curled together after, he said, "Grant me my father's Duchy, and I'll plant in you a son."

Sweat cooled on her skin while her heart still raced. "My Lord," she stretched, "you'd do it for the pleasure of seeing your son in a Duke's ermine."

He smiled his serpent's smile at her, which was all the answer the she needed. 

After he slipped out the door, she cleaned herself by the fire. She held her hand over her belly and did not flinch at the thought that by the next year, Cordelia would surely have a child in her nursery to tighten France's hold to the English crown. She wondered if France would even wait for that license to invade, but the thought had no sting in that moment. She wondered if Regan would try again for a child. She supposed she must always be trying. Goneril could not have said what was worse. Too frequent hope, or an ever fallow field.

She shook off those thoughts. Her body still hummed with pleasure and she even smiled at Albany when he came to her bed later. Warm and loose as she was, she did not reach for the bear grease to ease his passage as he set to his pleasure in her. She carded her fingers through his hair and counted up the castles and knight's fees now in her care.

If on the morrow, her Father shouted that they must summon the Marcher knights against a Scottish king long since dead, she gritted her teeth at Regan's fatty cream expression. Regan said, "Enjoy our Father's company. As the eldest, it's more fit that you should host him for the first month."

As if Goneril could let Regan have him. Whoever held their Father, held the better claim to the kingdom. She smiled sweet as poison honey and rested her hand upon her belly. "Let there be no rue in our speech to each other. Enjoy your journey South through the well planted fields." 

Regan's disgruntled look was Goneril's pleasure. Her Father shouting in the background made an excellent cover for Edmund's murmured, "The moment, your Father dies, you'll be at war with her." He toyed with the ties of his traveling cloak. "My Father owes his fealty to Cornwall."

Goneril didn't think it would be so long as that. She said, "Your Father owes his fealty to the King, who is in my keeping. Perhaps, your Father may lend you to me for the King's benefit."

His smile was filled with teeth. "My Lady, I could not possibly be parted from my Father's side for so long as your sort of month will be. I think your month will be like the nine months of others. But then, your Father does mean for his daughters to be Mother's to him." 

Goneril smiled. She smiled as Edmund left with Cornwall's train of knights. 

She kept her smile on the journey home to her own estates, where her Father must be hosted while the Queen's bower was left empty.

She kept that smile firmly in place and could not wince as her Father insisted at taking first place at her table. 

Albany laughed, "It is my honour to be displaced."

She felt the empty echo of where Edmund's laughter would have been. 

It was an echo when she heard of young Edgar's fall from Gloucester's favour, while his brother, Edmund, rose up. She did not laugh that Gloucester did not recognize the content in Edgar's supposed murderous letter as Edmund's own oiled words to her Father these many months. 

She held the distaff in her hands in her bower as she ordered Oswald to send some twenty Knights to the Scottish border to ride up and down as if they were a thousand, while Father's hundred caroused to his whim. 

Oswald said, "Of course, my Lady," and did it though it was still winter.

But winter's enforced peace would way to spring's clearing roads and promise of war. 

The babe in her belly ceased to kick. She lay awake late in the night feeling the silent weight at her middle and listened to her Father's knights carouse. She told herself that the child yet lived, but those thoughts sank through her like stones and left only the truth. That she must still bear this weight; while in the great hall, her Father forgot the day and her name and duty, and demanded all respect. While she had once again failed at the only task that gained a woman respect. If she did it in the proscribed way.

His knights disrespected her ladies if that was the correct term for it. When Anne came to her sobbing over the disgrace that a knight had roughly planted in her, Goneril told her what she already knew, "You've the choice of the mercy of your family or rue." 

Mary shook her head. "My Lady, I've already weighed the quality of my families mercy. Their answer would be that I marry him." She chose rue and silence. Goneril's ladies travelled always together after that.

Goneril felt as if the air held nothing but rue. 

Goneril respected Regan enough to send knights along Regan's border. 

Oswald said, "All of your agents report that she is doing the same."

"Even Father's Fool knows war is coming." Goneril shook her head. "I'm a housewife enough to regret the cost."

When Albany heard of it, he said, "My Lady, if the babe in your belly has you fearing the Scots, then let us send men to the Scottish border. But by what fancy do you send troops to our border with your sister?" He laid his hand on her belly. "Surely you bear a man-child to be so martial." She suffered that hand, and swallowed stone fears. She would have ordered three more towns on the coast nearest France fortified, but that she found she had not the funds as her Father had ordered a tournament with cloth of gold to be used upon the field. 

When she forced a smile, for he yet held the name of King, and she was but Princess Duchess, and cancelled the celebration, Father railed for hours. He threatened to go to Regan and she was so tired that she almost let him. Goneril even endured Albany's chiding her. "You should honour the King's silver hairs. All the court was looking forward to the spectacle."

It was a restless court with her Father's knights at every whim gripped their swords and swaggering about the castle, as if she was not the one paying for their keep. 

On a cold spring morning, mist thick on her newly granted fields, she lost the child. 

There in her bed, after months of sharing her body, Goneril was empty. Her breasts ached with milk as if she'd given birth, but she was empty. At least she had not died. She was the same age Mother had been when she'd died giving birth to Cordelia.

All while she was at the loosing of it, her Father's knights caroused. 

Her Father's Fool was so insolent as to call her a fallow field. When Lord Henfeld chided him, her Father struck Henfeld across the face, and railed that his Fool should be disrespected for speaking the truth, while the Fool crowed about hens and cocks. 

Father yelled until he forgot what he was yelling about and called for a festive tune. When Oswald tried to cross the courtyard, one of Father's Knights tripped him while her Father cheered. 

Her people were disrespected in her home. Her gentlemen were disrespected. Her ladies were disrespected. She was disrespected. 

She lay in her empty bed with her empty body listening to her Father's knight's drink her ale and shout in her great hall, until she could not take another moment more. 

She had her ladies dress her in her finest robes and went down to face her Father. He remembered her name. Perhaps he even remembered her well enough to curse her with a sterile womb and that it should be a torment to her. Because the only thing sharper than a serpent's tooth was a thankless child. Sharp as an old man with a hundred knights. Fifty left straight away when she dismissed them from her pay. Sharp as a blunt wit that declared that with Regan's help he'd take back up the shape of a king.

Her husband with his weak chin told her that she'd, "gone too far. It's not natural to split yourself from your Father." He told her, "Have a care for his silver hairs." She wanted to sit down, but she could imagine what the Fool would make of her needing to sit. She held onto the back of a chair lightly, as if she did not need it to stand. She did not take Albany's arm. She did not touch her husband of a score of years. She sent Oswald to let her sister know that their Father was headed in her direction with some fifty knights, with enough words to keep her from realizing what treasure she'd have if she kept him. Father was the very shape of the crown itself. 

Cornwall's choice was to decamp from his own home and flee to Gloucester's as if Father could not follow after. It must be Cornwall's choice. It would not have been Regan's.

Goneril went herself though every bump on the road bruised through her.

She arrived to find that one of her Father's knight had insulted his way into the stocks, and she had to wonder that a man who had to serve for his supper was so ill suited to the task. 

He was of no matter.

What mattered was that between them, she and her sister got Father down to twenty-five knights to ten and from there to one. None would have been better. Father stormed off into the night like a child expecting his daughters to Mother after him. He was followed quickly enough by his insulting Knight and his Fool. More than enough to keep him from walking off a cliff and setting them straight into war as they locked Gloucester's house against him. As if there weren't stables and inns and an entire town.

Goneril wasn't ready for war. She wanted more time. She wanted to sleep.

She needed her wits to stare her sister and her brother-in-law down. Her wits and every knight she'd been able to muster after her flag for the trip.

She had but a few hours of barbed wit, when Edmund, dear viper Edmund, brought them a letter from his Father's own hand. A letter that spoke of the lords of the kingdom rising up and to restore their King to the throne he'd abandoned. That promised that the King of France would lend an army to that task. Of course, he would. The season but wanted this. All the wars together at once.

She wondered that Gloucester could have committed such a thing to page, but she supposed he missed the sight of old glories, or she supposed Edmund had forged it, and felt a wave of warm feeling. Let Albany put up stained glass ideals of a more chivalrous age, she wanted the man who saw the world clear paned as it had ever been. No, more than that. She was tired. She needed him.

She left Regan and Cornwall to deal with Gloucester. She'd suggested what was in Regan's heart already, to pluck out Gloucester's eyes. She went to deal with the army he'd let land on their shores. 

As she made herself get back on a horse, Edmund's hand lingered as he lifted her up. He said, "I have the name of Earl, but I'd climb higher yet." 

She longed in that moment not to have to be the one who must ride here and there and back again. She said, "Much can happen on the battlefield." She knew he heard her meaning. She held his gaze and then made herself ride back to where her husband was. She made herself send Edmund away to deal with must be done. 

Albany was fit to chide her for being on the wrong side. For being unnatural and unwomanly. She smiled at him sweetly, because that was what she must do and reminded him that there was a French invasion to be dealt with. She did not ask him if he thought refortifying the ports might have been a more natural idea than a tournament on a field of gold. There was no time.

Changes came as arrows. 

Regan's husband dead by a servant's hand. Goneril could not take a breath in relief at the loss of a battle hardened enemy at her border. With so rich a dowry as half the kingdom, Regan could not remain unwed lest at the battle's end some knight decide to rise to king by way of forcibly wedding her. There in Regan's hand was the solution. She would wed Edmund, who was Goneril's.

Regan who had the heart of a Queen and would rejoin what had been divided if she had Edmund to help her do it. 

Goneril ached with weariness. She ached. She'd have her viper. She winced as she put pen to paper to make Edmund her offer of marriage if he'd kill her husband. Winced to put evidence down that could as easily condemn her. But she had a Queen's heart. She'd have all or none.

Her husband went into the field with all pomp and much ado. He'd have had her knights charging bristling pikemen in his righteous way if she'd not countermanded the order and said through grit teeth, "Perhaps, my Lord, we should join with my sister's forces, rather than continuing in this domestic way."

"Though you are an unnatural fiend in woman's shape, you speak some sense." Albany huffed ahead of her. He called her fiend, but when he greeted pretty Regan, who had done the actual plucking out of Gloucester's eyes, he said, "Our very loving sister, well be-met."

Regan fluttered her green eyes at Edmund and cast a cat's smile at Goneril and said, "You've misplaced your man," her smile only lacked feathers sticking from her lips, "Oswald." 

Goneril's felt the sudden acid fall of her stomach. She must not change her expression or Regan would have all the advantages. Oswald had been Goneril's right hand these twenty years. Mother had placed him in her household. She flexed her right hand. She flexed her left hand. 

The battle mattered for nothing if Regan took her Edmund. If she took Goneril's left hand. If Regan took the wicked lips that spoke Goneril's thoughts. Regan with Cornwall had been dangerous. Regan with Edmund would be unstoppable.

Regan invited her and Edmund into her tent, urging Goneril with pretty smiles.

Once in the tent, Regan was, "Edmund will ably lead my forces," and "Edmund has been the wall on which I shelter and lean since Cornwall died." As if Cornwall had been dead this twelve months and not these six hours.

Goneril made a sort of smile at Regan's hand on Edmund's arm, while even he, smooth snake as he was, looked disturbed to be between them, and excused himself to prepare for the battle.

"It's more fit that I have him," said Regan. She plucked a hair from her sleeve. "I have no husband."

"The battle's not yet won and much can happen." Goneril smiled. "We may yet both be widows, and you doubly if Edmund should fall." She smiled at her sister, who she did not much love and who did not much love her. But respect, that she had in plenty for Regan. Enough to say, "Let us drink to victory." Her hand did not tremble even a little as she slipped the poison into her sister's drink. She had a Queen's hand and must pour it herself. King's may command that others do their killing. Queens must do their own. Mother had taught her that.

Goneril felt a pang for the hard nine months Mother had spent in bearing Regan, but no more than Mother had spent on Cordelia, or the other babes she'd lost. 

She smiled and when Regan smiled sweetly and said, "To both our Lord's returning to us," Goneril raised her glass and drank deeply. Smiled to see Regan do the same. 

Goneril stayed with Regan. They saw Edmund's shape a time or two about the camp. Regan said, "He cuts a fine figure." Goneril's pen cut deep into the page where she was setting bowmen on the ridge where they'd do the most good. Regan said, "See how vigorously he sets to our tasks." Goneril' s fingers clenched as she sent the greater part of her forces to conceal themselves in the wood to obscure the size of their army. Regan said, "See how he… ah, the ham from this morning is waring with my stomach."

Goneril summoned the nerve to roll her eyes. "I told you not to eat it." She kept at what she was doing and did not say more as Regan grew more and more discomforted.

She could have wept from weary relief as word came that Father and Cordelia were captured outside of the French camp and away from French safety. They were in Edmund's hands. 

Regan said, "Do you think Edmund will know what must be done with them? That alive, they invite further invasion of the French. Freed they'll do the same." Regan looked around the tent. "We cannot put it to paper." 

Goneril placed her hand on her sister's shoulder. "He knows." 

Her sister, already pale and sweating with the poison in her drink, took another swallow. "Good." She mopped at the sweat beading on her forehead. "Yes, of course, my Edmund will know what to do." Held her hand to her belly. "That ham makes war on me."

Goneril counted the knights, who would not be lost that day or in fighting her sister. Regan would have fought to the last man. She told herself that.

The camps sat waiting for a battle, whose reasons had been removed, and there was Albany confronting her with her own letter in her own handwriting. She stared him down and smiled. She kept a Queen in her spine and said, "The laws are mine, not thine. Who can arraign me for it?"

He might think he'd lock her in a fenbound tower as Father had done to Mother, but Goneril told herself that she had those loyal to her. She ached. Mother had never been let out but that Father willed it could be done.

Edmund could at least face a challenge for his freedom. 

She went to see her sister gasping her last breathes. Grey faced and pleading. In that moment, Goneril could find that she had a care. She said, "Peace, sister, out of respect that you'd take my Edmund and my place, I poisoned you." She took her hand. "I'd not have done it, if I had not thought you could do it."

"Truly," coughed Regan.

"Truly. You were always the better of the two of us." Goneril washed Regan's sweat dampened brow with a cool cloth as she'd done a time or two when Regan was young and Goneril not yet wed. An odd memory to conjure at this pass.

"Better." With that and three breathes more, Regan was dead. As came the shouts that Edmund was dead. 

Goneril laughed, while the servants all around her stared. They stared as if they could prevent her from doing a thing. Such as pluck her dinner knife from her belt and appear to make an end of it. She made a shallow cut. Anne plucked the blade from her hand and ran out again to proclaim her dead. She swallowed a dram of something that would have her sleeping like the dead. 

On her husband's orders they tugged her supposed corpse and that of her sister with all the respect due a side of beef to flop upon the dirt. Goneril slipped further into that false sleep of death. 

Heard Father wailing for his Cordelia at a distance. There was no wailing for Regan. None for Goneril. She heard him die.

Goneril dreamed. 

She dreamed Albany offered her kingdom to Edgar. She dreamed Edgar offered her kingdom to Albany. 

She dreamed expecting to wake in state in some cathedral where she'd declare a miracle. She expected candles. She expected incense. 

She woke on her side in a field. Regan lay a hand's breadth from her as a raven plucked at what remained of her beautiful eyes. "Off!" She chased the creature off. She looked about for Edmund, but she supposed his brother had carried him away to be buried. He was not there. Nor was sainted Cordelia. Nor was their Father. They were alone.

She knelt by Regan. "Oh, sister." She straightened her limbs. "You deserved more respect than this. At least a fire to warm you. You were always cold." 

She made a cairn over Regan. She piled rocked. Her back ached and sweat ran rivers down her back. It was sweat, not tears. 

She'd not claim this field. It was Regan's now.

There were no French soldiers. The French had gone. She smiled to think France at least would not have her kingdom. 

There were no English soldiers. Albany had left. 

She sat upon the cairn over Regan's legs. She had quite the discussion of what to do next with Regan. There was the unmarried King of the Scots. "He has two sons already and needs no further heirs," said Goneril.

Regan did not answer.

"But I dislike the idea of selling my kingdom. There is still the matter of my husband still living," said Goneril. "Unless I'm so fortunate enough that he drinks the brandywine in my bower. It's full of rue. But the stars have not favoured me thus far."

She glanced about. "I half expect Edmund to berate me for speaking of stars. He would say that it's foolishness to lay our disasters at the feet of the sun, the moon and the stars." She smiled down at the cairn. "For you see they have no feet. Not as we have that take every step towards our success and failure. Oh, he had a marvellous wit. For that alone I could not have let you have him." 

She got up and went to see what food might have been overlooked as the soldiers left. She found a jug of wine that she must look somewhat sideways at. She laughed to Regan, "I've no way of knowing if this the draught that I poisoned you with."

Regan did not answer.

She drank it and did not die. She toasted the sun. She ate a crust of bread and was still hungry.

The sun set and the moon rose. A storm blew across the plain and covered the stars. Lightning divided the sky. Only for the sky to be rejoined in a clap of thunder. Goneril took some poor shelter beneath a tree's bare branches spread over with some waxed cotton she'd found in the French camp. 

The ghost of Regan did not rise at the midnight hour to chide her. Edmund did not walk bloody across the plain to render her advice. Their absence was an ache that reflected the cold of the rain. There was only Mother's voice chiding her mistakes, but she was a constant presence and no ghost.

Goneril said to the dawn pinking the horizon, "The age I am now, Mother was when she died. The age I am now, Father was when he went to Cornwall to take it for his own." She pursed her lips. "He had a hundred knights."

She pulled down her shelter, her only possession beyond the clothes on her back. "I'll not find them here." 

She set her feet northward and set out to begin again. After all the stars had no feet to fill a destiny with. Nor would sitting put a Queen in the Queen's bower.


End file.
